Crises can strike communities and organizations at any moment. When a natural disaster occurs, nonprofits scramble to gather the resources needed to aid their constituents and get them on the road to recovery. Grantmaking organizations like yours provide the funding that powers these relief efforts.

Because grantmakers are so integral to the work nonprofits do during crises, it’s paramount that you have a way to award grants with urgency. In this guide, we’ll cover strategies and considerations to keep in mind when a crisis happens:

• Use grant management tools.
• Be flexible.
• Proactively prepare for the next crisis.

To award timely grants during a crisis, your standard grantmaking process must be streamlined. To get started, we’ll cover how you can efficiently use grant management tools to carry out tasks like administrative oversight and budget management.

Use grant management tools.

Grant management technology aims to streamline the necessary yet time-consuming tasks involved in managing grants, such as practicing due diligence, balancing budgets, and following up with grantees. During a crisis, these tools can work overtime to help your organization handle community outreach and a sudden influx of applications.

Investing in its full-featured grants management solution is the logical next step for organizations already using Salesforce. Salesforce Grants Management has everything grantmakers need to oversee grant management, works seamlessly with other Salesforce tools, and helps grantmakers plan for special circumstances.

The Grants Management package offers the same features included in the Outbound Funds Module, which is used by any organization that awards funding as a part of its mission. According to Fíonta’s guide to grants management, Grants Management includes more specific features for grantmakers, such as:

• Fully customizable application templates. Build a unique application process based on your organization’s values and philanthropic priorities. Additionally, you can create abbreviated versions of your standard application form for times of crisis and mark them for expedited review.
• Tools that standardize due diligence tasks. Due diligence tasks, like confirming tax-exempt status, are essential to determining each applicant’s eligibility. If your organization does not have a clearly defined process for completing these tasks, they could hinder the grantmaking process. Grants Management allows you to set up action plans defining the necessary steps and documents that anyone reviewing applications must complete. This ensures that due diligence tasks are completed the same way across your team without additional communication.
• Budget management tools. Keeping a close eye on your budget is crucial to ensuring you have the funding available to deliver the grants promised. Grants Management allows you to track the grants you’ve awarded against your organization’s budget in minutes, keeping the process fast even in times of crisis.

With technology that streamlines and automates administrative tasks, your organization can balance awarding funds quickly and efficiently while still following all necessary procedures.

Be flexible.

During a crisis, nonprofit organizations desperately need supplies, volunteers, and funding. In these situations, be flexible to prioritize getting funding to the right organizations as quickly as possible.

Your organization might opt for more flexible grant-seeking requirements during a crisis by:

• Shortening your application
• Offering unrestricted funding and general operating support
• Fast-tracking approval processes by limiting administrative requirements
• Temporarily relaxing follow-up procedures until the crisis has passed
• Offering extensions on existing grants
• Adjusting evaluation criteria and expectations for this time

As with other aspects of the grant management process, technology can help you make these changes quickly. For example, by integrating your website with your CRM, you can ensure applicants receive the most up-to-date information possible about your grant process and available funding. Doing so ensures that you make the application process as convenient, timely, and hassle-free as possible.

Proactively prepare for the next crisis.

Crises and their impact are indeed unpredictable. While this makes it challenging to pinpoint when a disaster might strike, you can prepare for it by being proactive. This approach allows you to develop a standardized grantmaking procedure that runs smoothly for grantmakers and grant-seekers.

Learn from past events and put a standardized crisis grantmaking procedure in place. As a part of these preparations, your organization should:

• Determine adjusted guidelines and requirements. If your organization chooses to relax some of its guidelines during a crisis, decide how you will do so before the crisis. For example, under these special circumstances, you might not ask grant applicants to include a cover letter, a detailed budget breakdown, and their organizational background.
• Plan its rapid response protocol. Application reviews and approvals need to be fast-tracked during these scenarios. Determine who will be responsible for each step in the review process and outline your adjusted procedures, so staff members understand how and why it deviates from the standard process.
• Conduct risk assessments. While many crises, like natural disasters, are unpredictable, you can still determine levels of risk in advance. This will help you identify potential crises that could arise and develop plans for those scenarios. If you regularly award grants to nonprofits that offer aid in areas prone to flooding, your organization can closely monitor the weather, identify grantees whose constituents are likely to be by flooding, and proactively contact trusted long-time grantees who may need emergency funding.

Additionally, consider setting aside funds specifically reserved for crisis situations. Analyze data from past crises to determine how much funding is needed, and weigh this number against your organization’s budget. Setting aside this money in advance will save you from shifting funding around or adjusting your budget.

Once the dust has settled, take the time to reflect on your approach during the crisis. Identify strengths and weaknesses, ranging from your timeliness to how easy it was for nonprofits to find your grants. If possible, continue to support the affected organizations after the crisis to fuel their efforts as other donations trail off.

Sports have a way of bringing people together that’s unlike anything else. People also tend to be passionate about sports, so when you combine that passion with a good cause, you have a winning option for a fundraising event. Whether you’re raising money for a school team, your nonprofit’s general fund, a new outreach initiative, or other funding need, these tips for a sports-themed fundraising event will engage your community and get folks competing for a good cause.

Tip 1: Be Strategic About the Sport You Choose

The possibilities for a sports-themed event are endless, you’ll want to be strategic when choosing the focus of your sports-related event. The key is understanding your audience and the sport that they’ll best respond to. You don’t necessarily have to limit yourself to a physical sport either—esports, fantasy teams, or bracket challenges are also possibilities. Some popular charity sports events include:

• Charity golf tournament
• Volleyball tournament
• Soccer shootout
• Softball or baseball tournament
• 3-on-3 basketball tournament
• Walkathon or bikeathon
• Fun run or walk
• Dodgeball tournament
• Mini-March Madness bracket challenge
• Swim-a-thon
• Online e-sports tournament

When choosing the sport that will work best for your organization or audience, you might first conduct a quick survey to garner feedback from your donors and constituents to see what interests them. Next, take the following considerations into account as you start planning:

• Time of year. If your sport is played outdoors, you’ll need to choose a time of year with favorable weather in your area. If you’re hoping to involve families, be sure the event doesn’t overlap with the school day.
• Budget. Some sports-related events come with a fair amount of overhead, including facility rental, signage, trophies or awards, food and beverage, advertising, and equipment rental. Create a loose budget so you have an idea of how much you’ll need to spend to get the event off the ground.
• Facility availability. Research host facilities in your area and check their availability. You might ask the facility about the days and times of year they recommend to maximize participation.
• Donor preferences. Use the results of your surveys and informal conversations with your audience to see what option is the most appealing (and they’re most likely to support with their participation). 
• Relevance to your cause. Consider how the type of event relates to or can be connected to your mission in some way. This helps participants better understand what they’re helping raise money for. 

Tip 2: Incorporate Revenue-Boost Elements

Think about how you’ll generate revenue from your event. Participant registration fees, spectator tickets, sponsorships, and donation appeals are common, base revenue sources, but you’ll want to think broader and find other ways to boost fundraising. These revenue boosters often add additional fun and excitement to the event, making registrants eager to participate. GolfStatus recommends the following ideas to raise more dollars from your event:

• Sport-specific contests. Add one or more contests that are specific to the sport, such as a hole-in-one or putting contest for a charity golf tournament or a three-point shot contest for a basketball tournament. Participants love testing their skill (or luck!) for the chance to win a prize.
• Live or silent auctions. Seek donations for the items you’ll include in your auction to raise even more money. Consider using a mobile bidding platform so folks can make bids during the sporting event itself.
• Raffles. Much like auction items, you can boost fundraising by selling raffle tickets for donated prizes. Make it easy for folks to buy raffle tickets when they register, when they check in for the event, and throughout the event.
• Food and drink tickets. Work with a sponsor to donate food and beverages and sell tickets to attendees. Be sure to check with the host facility on any restrictions or regulations about outside food and drink.
• Mini-games. Have fun and get creative in creating mini-games or contests to add to your event! Look for ways to incorporate your nonprofit’s cause in the games to help participants make a tangible connection to your cause. For example, if your nonprofit helps build homes for underprivileged families, you could hold a putting contest using building tools like sledgehammers or levels. 

Tip 3: Sell Sponsorships & Create Partnerships

Sponsorships are an incredibly powerful component of fundraising events. They provide a sizable portion of the event’s income, offset hard costs, add credibility to the event and your organization, and help forge partnerships with businesses for additional support down the road. Sports-focused events are particularly appealing to prospective sponsors—sponsorships are a well-known part of sports culture and provide a ton of brand exposure and lift to the sponsoring business while raising dollars for your nonprofit.

• Make a list of event costs. Look at all the hard costs associated with the event, from facility rental, signage, and meals to entertainment, games, and attendee gifts, and sell sponsorships to cover them. 
• Create sponsorship levels and packages. Offering different sponsorship levels allows more businesses to get involved and support your event at a dollar amount that fits into their marketing or charitable budgets.
• Reach out to past supporters. Start with local businesses who have supported you in some way in the past, whether it was for another fundraising event or general support for your organization.
• Use your networks. Tap into your planning team, staff, or board of directors to see who might have contacts at area businesses to make a short list of potential sponsors to go after.
• Create personalized pitches and sponsorships. Work with businesses to determine what their goals are for sponsoring your event and find ways to help them get the biggest ROI. That might mean creating a custom sponsorship and corresponding pitch for some sponsors, but both you and the business will end up meeting your goals.
• Outline the benefits of corporate philanthropy. When you communicate with potential sponsors, be sure to highlight how corporate philanthropy benefits your sponsors just as much as it does your event.

Once the event is over, it’s crucial to follow up with sponsors to thank them for their support and continue to cultivate the relationship for broader organizational support.

Tip 4: Use Technology to Manage Your Event and its Data

The information you collect as part of your fundraising event is powerful and paints a picture of who is supporting you through sports-related events, your organization’s ROI fundraiser, and where you should focus your event fundraising in the future. Nonprofit event planners should make data collection and management a priority and find ways to streamline and simplify its collection and management. Some fundraising metrics to monitor include:

• Event signups (teams and individual participants and spectators)
• Attendee conversion rate 
• Total dollars raised
• Average donation amount
• Cost per participant
• Attendee retention rate
• Volunteer signup and retention rate

Collecting this important information is easier than you might think with event management software tailored for nonprofit needs. Look for platforms that are designed specifically for the sport your event is leveraging. For instance, if you’re hosting a charity golf fundraiser, you might consider using software with golf tournament planning and execution in mind.

Final Thoughts

These tips will set you up for success if you’re considering a sports-related fundraising event. Start by determining which sport you’ll focus on, look for ways to boost revenue, create and sell sponsorships, and track metrics. With a little preparation and data-driven thinking, your fundraiser can be a hole-in-one and make everyone feel like winners!